


Even on the worst days, there's the possibility for joy

by LegacyAtHeart



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-08 23:57:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1961103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LegacyAtHeart/pseuds/LegacyAtHeart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two people on a train.<br/>One is a woman who has no biography but a history <br/>The other is a man who is willing to love. <br/>Can she let him in enough to fully love?<br/>Full on original work and no affiliations with anyone or anything with my other stories and no plans to write any other story for this.<br/>The quotes are from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and Damned<br/>Title is a quote from Castle</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even on the worst days, there's the possibility for joy

_“All she wanted was to be a little girl, to be efficiently taken care of by some yielding yet superior power, stupider and steadier than herself. It seemed that the only lover she had ever wanted was a lover in a dream” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned_

_“Unloved women have no biographies-- they have histories” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned_

New York was quiet in the early hours of a Sunday morning in the middle of March. The streets were not as crowded as they could be. The traffic was in a lull and the air was cold. The skies were colored in the bright orange and blue of the morning, with the sun peeking out around the tall office and apartment buildings.

A woman with long dark hair and earthy green eyes came out of her high rise apartment. She was wrapped in a light brown cashmere coat and a green cashmere scarf. She held a steaming cup of coffee in her leather gloved hands and her black knee high leather boots were the only sound she truly heard. She adjusted her charcoal satchel on her shoulder and stuck out her hand to try to catch a cab.

One pulled up right away. The woman slipped into it and wrinkled her nose at the musty smell of stale beer, curry, and cigarette smoke.

“Grand Central,” she requested.  

She closed her eyes and listened to the radio that the cabbie—an older Arabic man with salt and pepper hair and brown eyes—had on. It was mindless chatter; weather and all that. The cab stopped in front of the train station and the woman paid, getting out.

She took her time, knowing she had time before she had to leave. She went inside and found a place to buy the Sunday Times. She sat on one of the seats for those waiting for the trains to board and started to read.

People started to trickle in more and more. Soon, the woman realized that she was not truly alone anyway. Before, only one or two people sat with her, far away. Now, more people came around and sat. The woman folded up her papers and walked to the ticket booth.

“One to New Haven,” she said to the young man behind the counter, pulling out her wallet and her card.

“Coming right up,” the boy said.

Once she had the ticket in her hand, the woman walked again to her platform. She took a seat on the bench and a man with dark brown hair and a black coat looked at her. He smiled, his laugh lines crinkling around his warm brown eyes. The woman smiled back and put her sunglasses on.

“I heard you made executive at the record company,” he said after a long stretch of silence.

“I did. More hours at home with my son, thank God,” she sighed. “How was your year,” she asked.

“I made Junior Partner at my firm,” he replied.

The woman chuckled. “And no one to share it with,” she asked.

“There is this one woman but I only see her once a year,” he told her.

The woman smiled and leaned in to kiss him. He met her half way and it was a soft kiss, like they were sipping the best wine they ever had.

“I have to tell you the whole story this time, right?” For once, the woman looked and felt nervous and ashamed. “Then we see if we went to continue this more than now. Or stay like this,” she trailed off.

“A yearly trip to New Haven and then I never see you until the next year,” the man replied, crossing his arms and looking at her with his eyebrow raised.

The train started to board and the two of them got on. The man guided her to their seats, next to each other, as it had been for years. The woman looked at the people gathering and then the train started moving. Once she could see the city she called home behind them, she turned back to her companion. He took her glove off and kissed her hand, smiling at it a little.

“I grew up with a stable household until the age of eight. My brother and sister and I had it easy until my father started drinking. Then he got violent and started hitting my mother. I was the oldest and even though my brother said he would help, I could never let that happen. I told my mother to divorce my father and take my siblings with her but leave me with him.

“My father was not happy that my mom left but I was a decent replacement. As soon as I could, I got a job and supported him as best I could. Of course, I was often or not the daily punching bag for him. Sometimes, that was all he did, just straight out hit me. Other times, he would burn me with his cigarette or scald me with hot water. 

“People would notice the burns and the bruises and I would lie and say that I was a clumsy idiot. But my boss made me see a shrink, who put me on anti-depressants. Then he broke my arm and I got put on pain meds.” She laughed bitterly at the thought of her past life. “At the age of twelve, I was addicted to pills like daddy was addicted to the booze.”

She couldn’t look at the man, whose eyes were full of sadness. She took a breath and continued.

“Three weeks after I turned fifteen, I remember coming home and seeing my father with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and my early acceptance to this art school. He accused me of leaving him high and dry and cleaning him out for nothing but my love for music. I was so high I can’t remember what I said to him at all.

“But I do remember how he beat me within an inch of my life. He cut me on the back of my neck and my neighbors called 911 after hearing me scream on the top of my lungs. I was in a coma for six weeks because my body shut down and he made a good blow to the head after I screamed like I did.

“When I came to, the police told me that my father shot himself after seeing me bleeding out on the floor. The doctors told me that I was pregnant but lost the baby due to the trauma. As soon as I could, I got out of treatment, went back to school, graduated and left New Haven. I got a job at a music studio and got married to my ex-husband. We never had children because I never wanted to have any because I would be a horrible mother. I already lost one, I couldn’t lose another.

“But then I adopted my son and my husband wanted to try to at least have one more. So we did, after two years with our son. I got pregnant but at twelve weeks, I miscarried. The doctors told me it was because I have a hostile uterus and it attacked my baby. My own body stopping me from having any children of my own. Of course it does, I deserve that.

“My husband tried to be supportive but he left me with our son, without a word two months later. I deserve that too. I pushed him away and he was hurt. I couldn’t help it. But I’m happy. My son is perfect and strong and beautiful and not one of my messed up genes are anywhere near him. I have a great job and a good life. But I’m alone. I don’t have love. But I deserve that.”

She choked up and then looked up. “I brought a plot of land and put tombstones in it with my children’s conception dates and the dates they died on them. I go every year and pray to them to protect my son,” she finished.

“Now I know that you could leave me in New Haven and not wait for me at all after this. I’m broken and damaged goods,” she told him.

“No,” he replied.

She looked up at the man, who looked at her with awe and sadness. He cupped her cheeks and then kissed her with all the passion he had in him. The woman was shocked and amazed he didn’t push her away. She was so used to being all alone with only her son by her side. But this man loved her. For the last five years he loved her and they only spent a day together out of a year. The other 364, they were nowhere near each other.

“I love you. You are mine, love. You always are with me. I love you. I want to be with you. I want to marry you. I want to give you more children. Nothing you could say can make me leave you. I. Love. You,” he told her.

The woman felt a strong sense of belonging with this man. She felt happiness and joy, thinking her darkness was finally behind her. She loved this man. She loved everything about him.

And he loved her.

All of her.

When the train stopped, the two of them got off and the man grabbed her hand. The woman smiled and giggled as he twirled her. She looked at the sunshine and wrapped her arms around her love. He smiled and kissed her forehead as they walked. She picked two white roses from the flower stand outside the station. He picked two sunflowers and she nodded. He saw her do the same for five years.

“Come with me,” she asked, only slight fearing the rejection.

He smiled. “I’d be honored,” he replied.

The woman felt a strong relief and hailed a cab. She rattled off the address and for the first time didn’t feel the agony going to the graves of children she would never meet. But only the safety of the love next to her.

They walked up the path and the woman put the flowers on the graves after they stopped. She kissed them and looked as the man did the same.

“I’ll watch them I promise,” he swore, his voice only a whisper.

The woman smiled and looked at the tombstones. “Thank you for sending him to me,” she added.

They stood for a long while in silence and then walked back together.

The woman wondered what her life would now entail. Once back in New York, he would have to meet her son and they would start a life together. One of them would have to move into the other’s house. Then they would get married and live that life together. She would continue to work as a music executive and he as a lawyer. Then maybe they’ll have children and maybe her body would love her enough to let her have this one.

But for now, she’ll love with all her might.

She deserved that.

 

_“She was dazzling-- alight; it was agony to comprehend her beauty in a glance.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful And Damned_


End file.
